The Radgepacket Tapes
Following on from our magnificent start to Radgepacket with our Danny King expose` we’ve landed another big fish in the world of hard hitting British fiction. The mighty Max Kinnings stupidly opened his door when we pretended to be gasmen and after a bit of struggling and some duct tape based shenanigans he was soon spilling the beans.
• So, Max, what’s happening with you at the minute?
I’m working like a dog. (Do dogs work hard?) Anyway, I’m working on a number film scripts, I’m co-writing a book of short stories with Rik Mayall, and I’m finishing off my new novel called Baptism which is a thriller about a terrorist hi-jack on the London Underground.
• You’ve written a number of scripts for both big and small screen – is there anything we should be looking out for soon?
Act of Grace is a film that I co-wrote with Marc Pye and Alan Field which is getting its world premiere at the National Film Theatre at the start of July as part of the London UK Film Focus. It’s a thriller set in the world of the Triads in Liverpool and Manchester starring Leo Gregory and Jody Latham. I’ve only seen a very early cut of the film but hopefully it’ll be snapped up by a distributor.
• Your books have entertained a few of us up here in the frozen North but who or what would you say was responsible for motivating young Max to to take up the pen initially?
Writers like Normal Mailer, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and, of course, the good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson were the guys that really made me want to write.
• It’s bloody hard work getting a publisher (or an agent!) these days – how did you manage it – particularly with something as off the wall as Hitman?
Hitman was my third novel. I’d been writing for ten years before I got the deal. I’d been trying to write a sort of modern-day beat novel but it felt contrived and then I sat down and decided to write the sort of novel that I wanted to read and it all poured out. Even then, I edited it for a long time and was lucky enough to snag an agent almost straight away. This was 1999 and publishers were looking for the new Irvine Welsh so maybe I was in the right place at the right time.
• What are you reading at the minute then (apart from Radgepacket obviously)?
I’ve just finished The Second Plane by Martin Amis and I’m rereading Gonzo, the Hunter S. Thompson biography. Did I mention that I like him?
• You seem to have a lot of projects on the go, books, films etc. – how do you manage to stay on top of them all?
Panic is the key. I was very lucky for a number of years that my wife supported me while I wrote but now it’s all down to me as she’s given up work to bring up our three year old daughter. When you’re faced with bankruptcy if you don’t get the money in, it’s amazing how it focuses the mind. Too many writers are afraid to leave their comfort zone and that’s what prevents them from making it.
• And what do you prefer screenwriting or novel?
I wouldn’t like to say which I prefer between screenwriting and novel writing. Novel writing is more solitary but I enjoy screenwriting for its more collaborate approach. It’s a hell of a buzz walking into a shop and there’s your book on the table at the front but I’m sure it’ll be a buzz to sit down in a cinema and see the film I’ve co- written. I guess I’ll have to wait for July 3rd when Act of Grace is screened to see which I prefer.
• What have you lashed all the millions on then – Lottery tickets, drink and drugs or sweets?
The millions? More like the hundreds. I don’t think you decide to become a writer to become rich. I guess some people do and possibly a minute percentage of them do actually make some good money but really it’s a compulsion that drives you on. I think a lot of writers are people who realise that they can’t actually do anything else. It’s almost like a curse.
• We have a number of literary heroes here at BB towers – who would you say yours were and why?
My literary heroes are those that I mentioned above. But I’d also include screenwriters in that category, people like Bruce Robinson and Charlie Kaufman. I like writers who have a very idiosyncratic voice. I can’t abide intellectual pomp, that’s probably why I’m drawn to writers who don’t have any and aren’t afraid to explore the dark side of human nature. I’ve recently been teaching a course in writing horror at Brunel University and this has led to me reading some Stephen King for the first time since I was a kid and he’s something of a literary hero, just for his tenacity, his spirit and his amazingly prolific output. Anyone who is interested in becoming a writer should read his book On Writing.
• Any other advice you could give the millions of writers and authors out there who never get a sniff of publication?
You’ve got to learn from rejection. You’ve got to try and analyse why you’re not getting the deals. It might be nothing to do with the writing, it might be that you’re not getting the work in front of the right people. Or it might be that you’re sending out the work too soon, before it’s ready. That’s the most the common problem with new writers. They send out the work before it’s ready.
• Ever considered that Celebrity Jungle thing?
If anyone had even the slightest interest in watching a middle-aged bloke who sits in front of a computer all day writing bollocks sitting in the jungle talking bollocks then I’d be there. As a writer, you’d be mad to turn something like that down. But I think you’ve got to be a celebrity to be asked and I may be many things, but that isn’t one of them.
• What you mean eating maggots while some unknown has-been jiggles her tits at the camera in the most revealing bikini she could drag over her half plastic flesh in a vain attempt to rekindle the embers of a career that was shite anyway appeals to you?
It does!
• Do you follow the old adage of ‘write what you know’?
Not really. It’s like that old adage that “everyone’s got a book inside them”. They haven’t. Even some people who have written and published books and they’ve become bestsellers haven’t got a book inside them. Not a good one anyway. Hitman was set against the background of the music business and I did work in the music business for a few years but it wasn’t really that that made it successful.
• The music business eh? You must have been to some mental parties – any other skeletons in the closet?
No skeletons but I’ve been to some good parties. One of the best was the launch party for Hitman which was organised by a good friend of mine who manages Howard Marks. Howard was the DJ and we had a couple of the Great Train Robbers there along with some genuine sixties London gangsters.
• You’re renowned, amongst us anyway, for your drug references – we too are fond of them as basically they’re all around you in the real world and that’s what we write about – but did you find that any kind of barrier when you were starting out?
Not at all, it was a positive bonus. As I mentioned, I think the publishers of Hitman were hoping that I might become another Irvine Welsh so drug references were positively encouraged. But I’ve adapted Hitman for the screen and even though everyone who reads the script thinks it’s very funny and exciting, it’s the drug references that the producers are always put off by. Making a film is a much more expensive venture than publishing a book and I guess they’re worried that the drug angle might put off a mainstream audience.
• Who would play you in the film of your life?
Brad Pitt of course. Isn’t that obvious?
• And what sort of soundtrack would you like playing?
The soundtrack master in my opinion is David Holmes. I’ve been trying to get him involved in the Hitman film. I love all sorts of music but soundtracks are so difficult to get right and easy to get wrong that I’d leave it to someone like him.
• You’re quite a versatile bloke - any aspirations to become an Eastenders scriptwriter or corporate jingle writer?
Not a big Easties fan – used to be – but I’d love to write for Coronation Street. There’s some great writing in that. People are very snobbish about soaps in this country when they’re far superior to some of the supposedly high-brow drama that we churn out that nobody watches.
• And finally, but most importantly, is there any chance you might need a fifteen stone shaven headed Geordie for any of your screenplays???
It’s funny you should say that…
The Radgepacket team and all at Byker Books would like to take this opportunity to thank Max for giving us his time so freely during this interview. We wish him continued success with his writing career and urge you all to buy his books because, frankly, they’re fucking ace.
We would also like to re-assure members of the general public that the binge drinking that occurred during the making of this interview was supervised by an adult at all times.